The Boy Who Itched
by rockstop57
Summary: Hogwarts faces a threat of epic hygienic proportions. As usual, Harry gets the blame. Featuring an ensemble cast of all your favorites. One-shot.


The Boy Who Itched

Harry awoke in his vast four-poster bed with an incredible itching sensation on the top of his head.

A bit wary, as the last time this had occurred it was because Trevor had got loose from his cage and settled on Harry's scalp during the night, Harry tentatively raised his fingers and set them gingerly down on his unruly black hair.

No Trevor, but he almost wished there had been. Instead, he felt the unsettling movement of little creatures over his hand. He knew what it meant. He had been through primary school, where the slightest case of head-scratching triggered a mass sterilization of the entire premises. The child who had initiated the outbreak was doomed to a life of alienation and scorn, not to mention a week's scrubbing at the hands of his mum.

Memories whirled through Harry's brain, remembrances of the horror and dread students experienced at the smallest itch, fearing that their number had finally been called and that their days as normal, unshunned boys and girls were over.

He briefly considered keeping the matter to himself. There could be little worse than starting an epidemic at Hogwarts and being forever labeled a dirty Muggle tramp. But this plan was utterly shot down when Seamus woke up, yawned, stretched his arms, and said, "Harry, what's that crawling on your head?"

Fortunately for Harry, there was at least one sensible person in the Gryffindor dormitories. As Seamus, Dean, Neville, and Ron ran frantically down the stairs and into the common room, screaming bloody murder and waking the girls, who responded in kind, Hermione rolled her eyes and took a closer look at Harry's offending scalp.

"Oo, Harry, you've got quite a lot," she said unhelpfully, as though she had just discovered the perfect ingredients for her Potions assignment that afternoon.

"Thanks, Hermione," Harry said. "You always find the silver lining."

"Oh, don't be silly, Harry, you know that having one is just as bad as having a hundred. You'd have had to report yourself either way."

"Report myself? You make it sound like I'm a menace to society."

"Well, you are, really. The sooner you see Madam Pomfrey the better."

Grumbling, Harry allowed himself to be drug to the hospital wing, still in his pajamas, where Madam Pomfrey reacted exactly as Harry had imagined she would. Responding to the situation as though it were a nuclear threat, she forced Harry to strip down and scrub his entire body with scalding hot water and a heavy-duty shampoo that probably merited a hazmat rating. While he was following orders, she sent an owl to Professor Dumbledore informing him of the danger and demanding a school-wide head-washing bonanza and new sheets and pillowcases for everyone.

When Harry emerged from his cleansing, no longer itching but feeling as though he had lost most of his skin, he found a fresh school robe awaiting him and hastily put it on. He could only assume that his pajamas had been thrown into the incinerator. He was just in time, for at that moment the Weasley twins walked through the door of the hospital wing and sat down on two stools, grinning gleefully at him. Their presence usually entertained him, but right now they were the last people he wanted to see.

"What are you two doing here?" he muttered.

"Volunteered," said George.

"Had to set an example for the young'uns," added Fred.

Harry said nothing, knowing better.

"We heard you had a _lousy_ morning," Fred remarked.

"Shut up or I'll tell everyone you gave them to me."

"Blimey, that's an idea," George broke in excitedly. "Fred, why haven't we thought of that?"

"_You_ might not have done, but—"

The twins were interrupted by the entrance of Madam Pomfrey, whose severe expression and no-nonsense manner gave the impression that the school had been a target of biological warfare. Harry took this opportunity to sneak out the door into the corridor, where to his great distress he was met by none other than Peeves.

"Potty, wee Potty!" the poltergeist shrieked, clearly feeling that Christmas had come early. "The Gross-en One! The Boy Who Itched!"

Harry had always believed himself incapable of murder, but had there been an appropriate implement to hand, he would likely have sent Peeves to his Maker. All he wanted to do was hide in his bed with the curtains drawn round him, but even that small respite was denied him as the linens and dormitories were undergoing intense cleaning. As he walked morosely through the halls, avoiding the cold stares of his queuing classmates who had hours to wait before their turn came, he tried to figure out where he could have come by his affliction. Hedwig was scrupulously clean, and had any of the creatures kept on the grounds been responsible, Hagrid's entire class would have been suffering. Harry ruefully ruled that possibility out, growing more desperate as his options narrowed. Yes, this was a large school and students were susceptible to any number of contagions, but still, he thought he deserved an explanation. He refused to believe he had been singled out by chance. But then what could it have been?

Suddenly, the answer hit Harry like a Hippogriff hoof to the face. He cursed under his breath. _The next time I see Sirius I swear I'll pay him for this. Padfoot my ar—_

"Harry!"

Harry roused himself from his ireful stupor to see Hermione and Ron standing in line at the end of the hall, having just progressed enough to round the corner. Hermione was waving energetically, but Ron hung back, still looking somewhat skittish. Harry had half a mind to flick a piece of fluff Ron's way merely to frighten him but restrained himself. With six siblings and a house like the Burrow, any exposure to something as innocuous as a case of head lice was bound to result in a pandemic of epic proportions, so Harry could understand Ron's worry. Nonetheless, it annoyed him.

He kept his distance as he stopped by Hermione and Ron, asking if they had heard whether classes had been canceled for the day. Hermione looked shocked that such an eventuality could even be possible, and Harry quickly reassured her that he hadn't heard anything, he was only making sure. Ron deflated even further, clearly depressed by the thought that he might still have to finish his homework after being put through the hygiene wringer by Madam Pomfrey. Hermione simply looked stricken.

"Hermione," Ron whispered, "Is there any way we can use your timeturner to go _forward _in time instead of back?"

"I'd have thought you would want as much time to write your essays as possible, Ronald," Hermione sniffed primly.

Ron did not press the issue.

As he was about to move off, perhaps to visit Myrtle in the girls' toilets, Harry heard a familiar drawling voice from somewhere further up in the queue.

"I don't see why we've all got to go through this," it said irritably. "How are we in the dungeons supposed to have got bedbugs from folk up in the towers? We're much more likely to get them from standing crushed up next to each other and going places Potter's been. If you ask me, he ought to be shipped off. It's disgusting, if you ask me."

"I didn't hear anyone ask you, Malfoy," Harry snapped loudly. "In fact, I've never heard anyone ask you anything. Good thing, since I can't reckon how you could possibly talk more than you do already."

Draco's pointed white face flushed bright red. "Go hump a Muggle, Potter."

"No thanks, I'll leave that to your mum."

Before Draco had the chance to retaliate, a nearby door opened and a damp Professor McGonagall stepped out. "Potter! Malfoy! I request that you act your age and help make this tedious process a bit smoother!" Her head was wrapped in a thick tartan shawl, making her look like an ancient clan lord with a bad case of the mumps. "If we teachers can submit to these indignities, so can you."

"Here, here," Professor Flitwick joined in as he shuffled out from behind McGonagall's knee. "I don't want to see a shampoo bottle for a month at least."

"Now, Filius," interrupted Dumbledore, the third to step out of the room, his long white hair and beard looking fluffier than usual. "There is no harm in a nice warm cleansing scrub. I for one enjoyed myself, and I am sure my tresses are none the worse for it. Nor are yours, Severus."

The children in the vicinity gasped. Dumbledore had his back turned to the hall and spoke into the washroom, from which there appeared no sign of another exiting professor.

"You can't hide in there forever, you know," Dumbledore beamed, his eyes glittering behind his half-moon spectacles. "Classes to teach, potions to make, glory to brew and all that."

The students held their breath as they heard the rustling of a robe and the face of Professor Snape appeared in the doorway, twisted into the most hideous scowl Harry had ever seen. If it hadn't been for his hooked nose, Harry would not have recognized him. His ever-greasy hair was now a frizzy black poof around his head, rather as though he had been hit by lightning.

Dumbledore sniffed the air. "Mmm," he said. "Coconut."

Without speaking a word, Snape stormed off toward the dungeons, leaving a trail of tropical scent behind him.

Harry felt the gloom of the morning lift, the judgment of his classmates turn to admiration and awe. Today, he decided impulsively, had been a very good day.


End file.
